Abstract. We consider the following Bezout inequality for mixed volumes:It was shown previously that the inequality is true for any n -dimensional simplex ∆ and any convex bodies K1, . . . , Kr in R n . It was conjectured that simplices are the only convex bodies for which the inequality holds for arbitrary bodies K1, . . . , Kr in R n . In this paper we prove that this is indeed the case if we assume that ∆ is a convex polytope. Thus the Bezout inequality characterizes simplices in the class of convex n -polytopes. In addition, we show that if a body ∆ satisfies the Bezout inequality for all bodies K1, . . . , Kr then the boundary of ∆ cannot have strict points. In particular, it cannot have points with positive Gaussian curvature.